[06] CAN I GET A HISTORY OF ARPA MEMBER VOTES?

     ARPA member votes are usually called to help shape membership policies
     and dues.  A vote will usually stem from a discussion on the BBOARD if
     the topic seems like a worthwhile voting topic.  Votes are handled
     through the 'vote' command.

     1994 SUSTAINING MEMBERSHIP DUES (pre-ARPA)

     A meeting was held at The Great Outdoors sandwich shop at Preston RD
     in Dallas.  There were 10 SDF members in attendance.  There an idea
     was  proposed to create an SDF Membership to help with operational
     costs.  Prior to this, donating to SDF was purely voluntary.  In order
     to make the membership desirable, it was discussed and decided that
     the 'ARPA Network Services' be a premium and available to SDF members
     that supported SDF.  A vote was called on the system to set the dues
     at $5/month.

     1996 ARPA MEMBERSHIP DUES REVIEW

     A meeting was held at Pasand Indian Restaurant at Coit Rd and Campbell RD
     in Richardson.  There were 16 SDF members in attendance.  The group 
     proposed a review of the ARPA membership dues as there was only 1 or
     2 people paying the monthly dues.  A discounted schedule was proposed
     and later voted on SDF to have the following dues schedule:

        $8  - Monthly
        $20 - Quarterly
        $36 - Bi-annually
        $60 - Annually

     It was also noted that ARPA membership would allow SLIP/PPP via SDF's
     dialup numbers as well as an IRC BOT process.

     1998 ARPA MEMBERSHIP REVIEW AND SUPPLEMENTAL MEMBERSHIPS

     In order to make the membership dues easier to pay, it was proposed
     that it become a one time 'initiation fee'.  It was then discussed what
     would be considered an appropriate one time initiation fee.  A survey
     was run on the system with roughly 200 responses with ranges between
     $200 - $10.  It was decided that the intiation fee for SDF ARPA
     membership would be set at $36 so that it would be large enough so
     people would take the membership seriously, but still affordable and
     not a financial burden.  Also a vote was taken on new supplemental
     memberships with specific features for ARPA members.  These supplemental
     features would help with operational costs:

     users  - free
     arpa   - $36 one time
              100mb home, 100mb web, 100mb mail
              telnet, ssh, ftp, ytalk, irc, snarf,
              gcc, g++, perl, python, ruby, php 
     dns    - $20 a year
              domain name service for an internet domain name
     vhost  - $14 a month
              webhosting for your domain
              dns, vpm and a private http log
     server - $20 a month
              ability to run a server (talker, mud, bbs)
              background process on a private server
              access to crontab 
     robot  - $10 a month
              ability to run an IRC bot
              background process on a private server
              access to crontab
     tweak  - $20 a year
              ability to customise and increase your quota
     vpm    - $20 a year 
              20 'virtual pop3' mailboxes

     2003 METAARPA MEMBERSHIP 

     MetaARPA was proposed as a sustaining membership and a tier above the
     one time ARPA membership.  This membership was designed to allow for
     IRC bots and server processes which were previously their own
     memberships.  MetaARPA would also have advanced programming privileges
     to languages such as lisp, java and other CPU / memory intensive 
     systems which would be run on dedicated MetaARPA-only servers.  Software
     collaboration was also made available with the addition of individual 
     member groups, as well as a shared bin directory which could be made 
     available to all SDF users.  

     MetaARPA - $36 a year
              - MetaARPA only server
              - crontab (mkcron) and background processes (screen)
              - access to advanced programming languages (lisp, java, squeak)
              - shared public bin dir (/sys/sdf/bin)
              - user collaboration (setgrp)

